Actresses Fan Bingbing, from left, Marion Cotillard, Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz and Lupita Nyong'o pose for photographers during a photo call for the film '355' at the 71st international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Thursday, May 10, 2018. Vianney Le Caer / Invision/AP

Jessica Chastain brought woman-power to the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday as she introduced her 355 cast.

The Help star assembled a group of international superstars, including France’s Marion Cotillard and Spain’s Penelope Cruz, when she first came up with the idea for an all-female spy adventure thriller and pitched it to her X-Men: Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg, and on Thursday, the women made a show of force at Cannes.

Chastain, Cruz, and Cotillard were joined by Fan Bingbing and Lupita Nyong’o for a photocall to officially launch 355.

Prior to the festival, Chastain explained she personally reached out to her upcoming castmates to ask them to be part of the project.

“I had so much fun working on The Help that I always wanted to do another female ensemble film,” Chastain told Deadline. “I love the Bourne movies, the Mission: Impossible films and wondered why, except for Charlie’s Angels, there hadn’t been a true female ensemble action thriller spy film.

“That got my wheels going, along with the idea of casting actresses from all over the world to truly make it an international project. I realized the incredible creative freedom we would have with that. I brought the idea to Simon, told him about the actresses I was thinking of, and he was so sweet. He said, ‘I want to do it with you.’

“Then I called all the women, told them what I was envisioning and that I wanted it to be a collaborative process, and how we would all create this together. The one thing that felt important is that we all show up at Cannes, because that would be the beginning of our journey together. Every single actress I called said yes… They committed to Cannes, and to everything. So far it has been a very wonderfully easy process.”

Oscar winner Cruz has already seen a lot of Cannes this week after opening the 71st film festival on Tuesday with the premiere of her new film Everybody Knows, alongside her husband and co-star Javier Bardem.

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